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  • From: Isaac Fried <if AT math.bu.edu>
  • To: george.athas AT moore.edu.au
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Two X letters
  • Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2007 02:48:27 -0400

George,

OK, OK, you are right. If only for the sake of peace and harmony on this distinguished list I will climb down the rhetorical tree and settle upon the solid ground of stolid and dignified discourse.
The claim made [correct me please if I am wrong] is that once upon a time in the very distant and foggy past the ancient Hebrews, or ancient Canaanites [the mythical proto-Semites], had two close, yet semantically distinct, speech-sounds that merged into one sound that was eventually recorded by the inventors of the alphabet as the single letter X.
This claim of the twin X seeks to draw its approval from its existence in Arabic, fortified by the assertion that the Arabs, conservative in their ways, have preserved the sounds of the ancient Semites. It is a plausible argument but like many other apparently logical arguments it may well be a dud. The Arabic alphabet in its present form is a [relatively] modern committee-made product introduced only after the revelation of the Koran and motivated by the desire to immediately have a permanent written record thereof. The over-dot was possibly added to accommodate various dialectical differences [thus they are signs for "phones" not "phonemes"], or indeed for the purpose of semantic cleavage judged desirable due to the proliferation of Arabic roots. In other words, the process may have well advanced in the opposite direction: in the beginning there was only one X, then later it branched into a pair of Xs. This is what might have happened in Hebrew, a single letter spawning, as the language grew and demand for finer semantic distinctions increased, the five equivalents G, X, H, K, Q now coexisting in it.
Pronunciation is a fickle thing --- spoken Hebrew, for instance, is rapidly losing at this very moment many of its H sounds. The personal pronouns are invariably reduced now to a mere U [pronounced oo as in 'foot'] for HU), 'he', and a mere I [pronounced ee as in 'feet'] for HI), 'she'. Educated Hebrew speaking people will routinely and nonchalantly say TA-BAYIT, 'the house', instead of the full ET HA- BAYIT. We are all for the short and the easy.
Deep throated ayin is also out, and Hebrew is not poorer for it.
The way foreigners record Hebrew names containing sounds strange to their ear is little proof as to how these names are pronounced by the Hebrews. Look at what they did to the name Isaac. All I am ready lo learn from AZA being said GAZA is that the city name was pronounced by some indigenous people with a baffling, non-reproducible, deep throated ayin.
Modern Hebrew linguists are espousing the dual-X-theory with such enthusiasm since by dint of this hypothesis they grant themselves the license to consider, practically at will, any X as being either one of two "different" letters. It makes their life easier. Any Hebraist is constantly being called to explain, to himself, or to fended off pressing students, this strange phenomenon of Hebrew having two [or more] equiconsonantal words, say NAXAL, 'brook', and NAXAL, 'inherit', of apparently remote meaning. One easy way of extricating oneself from this dilemma is to make the dogmatic claim that these are two "different" X letters, and hence the two words are not the "same". They look the same but are actually genetically distinct. One is then in an instant in the free --- nothing left to explain.
Another notorious example is the root XRB, which some Hebraists claim now is a three-in-one root, each being the "different" progenitor of 'destruction', of 'sword', and of 'dryness'.
I don't buy, not for a moment, this sneaky, ad-hoc, deus ex machina, argumentative device, which in my opinion is no more than an instrument of deception, self delusion, and slippery dodging. Moreover, it provides only the briefest of reprieves since it fails to apply to similar situations with other letters. The Hebrew words KPAR, 'village', KPOR, 'frost', KPYIR, 'lion cub', KOPER, 'pitch', KOPER, 'ransom', KAPORET, 'cover' and KAPARAH, 'expiation' are all derivatives of the root KPR, yet no resort is made here to an argument of multiple kaps, probably because Arabic is devoid of such.
Being hardly a science [it is certainly not an exact science], Linguistics thrives on consensus. Without this, much of it would have fallen apart and dissolved under the weight of internecine bickering and dissenting opinions of horrifying heretics questioning its fundamental premises. This is why Linguistics is so apprehensive of the fringe and holds so dear the "mainstream", making it largely the scholastics of the quote, "she points out in her paper, he says in his book, they write in their dictionary". It tends also, as in other sciences, to harden into universal truths obvious, self-serving, platitudes and fallacies, stifling thereby any attempt at innovative thinking.
It is the duty of every free thinking, Hebrew loving, man to decry them as such as soon as he sees one; in the words of Psalms 137:7 (ARU (ARU (AD HAYSOD BAH.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

On Oct 25, 2007, at 8:09 PM, George Athas wrote:

Isaac,

Given your rhetoric, I don't see any point in pursuing the matter.



Best Regards,

GEORGE ATHAS
Moore Theological College (Sydney)
1 King St, Newtown, NSW 2042, Australia
Ph: (+61 2) 9577 9774





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